Chapter 3 - THE RED LEDGER
“What does Victor Hale want with me?”
Marcus closed his eyes.
For once, I could not tell whether he was preparing another lie or finally letting one die.
Dante answered before he could.
“That is exactly what we’re going to find out.”
Marcus laughed.
“You think threatening me gets you there?”
“No.”
Dante remained still.
“I think your fear does.”
Marcus looked at him.
Then at Marco.
Then me.
Something in his expression shifted.
Not remorse.
Calculation.
“I want protection.”
I stared.
“Protection?”
“From Hale.”
Dante’s mouth hardened.
“You met him yesterday.”
“Yes.”
“Voluntarily.”
Marcus hesitated.
“Yes.”
“And now you want protection from him.”
“You don’t know what he does to people.”
Dante’s eyes went flat.
“My brother did.”
That shut him up.
I sat at the nearest table because my legs no longer trusted me.
Giuseppe brought water.
My hands shook too badly to lift the glass.
Marco placed the red ledger photograph beside me.
“What is that?”
Marcus answered reluctantly.
“Insurance records.”
“Try again.”
He looked at me.
“Your father’s records.”
My heart stopped.
“My father?”
Daniel Reyes had been dead eleven years.
A subway platform heart attack.
Fifty-six years old.
Too young.
The man who taught me to make pancakes.
The man who called every Sunday after I moved to New York.
Marcus had met him only once before he died.
“What did Dad have to do with any of this?”
Marcus rubbed both hands over his face.
“He worked for a company called Archway Adjusters.”
“I know.”
“He audited marine insurance claims.”
“Yes.”
Dante sat across from him.
“And?”
Marcus looked at me.
“Your father found claims connected to Castellano cargo.”
My stomach tightened.
Dante’s eyes sharpened.
“What kind of claims?”
“Ships that supposedly lost cargo during storms.”
“Supposedly?”
“The cargo was unloaded before the storms.”
Marco swore softly.
Insurance fraud.
Smuggling.
Money movement.
My father had always said marine insurance was mostly paperwork and people lying about water damage.
Apparently he had been understating things.
“Anthony knew?” Dante asked.
“Yes.”
“And Victor?”
“Yes.”
“Which side was my uncle on?”
Marcus laughed bitterly.
“That’s the problem. Anthony switched sides.”
Dante became very still.
Marcus continued.
“Your uncle helped run it years ago. Then your brother died.”
Dante’s jaw tightened.
“And Anthony decided Hale had gone too far.”
My father’s records connected Victor’s company to the fraudulent shipments.
Anthony had apparently spent years hiding copies.
When my father realized claims had been falsified, he kept his own ledger.
Red leather.
Every ship.
Every payment.
Every adjuster.
Every officer who looked away.
“Where is it?” I asked.
Marcus looked at the photograph.
“I had it.”
“You stole my father’s ledger?”
“I found it.”
“Where?”
“Your mother’s storage unit after she died.”
I stood so quickly the chair tipped.
“You went through my mother’s things?”
“We were married.”
“That was not permission.”
“Mia—”
“What else did you take?”
“Nothing.”
I knew the answer was a lie.
I knew it from the tiny twitch beneath his left eye.
I had spent years studying that twitch for reasons I hated.
“What else?”
He looked down.
“A watch.”
My father’s watch.
Silver face.
Brown strap.
Mom had given it to me after the funeral.
I believed I lost it during our move two years ago.
“You told me I misplaced it.”
“I needed what was inside.”
My hands curled.
“What was inside?”
“A key.”
Another room.
Another secret.
Dante spoke carefully.
“Where is the watch?”
Marcus hesitated.
“Victor has it.”
Rage rose hot behind my ribs.
I stepped toward him.
Dante stood, perhaps expecting me to hit my husband.
I didn’t.
I looked Marcus directly in the eye.
“You gave a murderer something my father left me.”
“I traded it.”
“For what?”
Marcus’s voice cracked.
“My life.”
There it was.
Ugly enough to sound true.
Victor had approached Marcus eighteen months earlier.
He already knew Marcus had found Daniel Reyes’s ledger.
He threatened to expose Marcus’s own embezzlement from his insurance company unless Marcus handed everything over.
“You were stealing?”
Marcus looked ashamed.
“Small amounts.”
I almost laughed.
Men always made their own crimes small.
“And Victor knew.”
“Yes.”
“He recruited you.”
“Yes.”
“To spy on me?”
Silence.
My stomach dropped.
“Marcus.”
“At first.”
My skin crawled.
He had married me four years ago.
Victor approached eighteen months earlier.
So the marriage had been real before the conspiracy.
That should have comforted me.
It didn’t.
“What did he want to know?”
“Whether your father left anything else.”
“Did you tell him about me?”
“He already knew.”
“How?”
Marcus looked toward Dante.
“Anthony.”
Dante frowned.
“My uncle knew Mia?”
“Her father contacted him before he died.”
The room changed again.
Dad had spoken to a Castellano.
I could almost hear him telling me that Sunday calls mattered and vegetables did not become optional after age twenty-five.
How much had I never known?
Marco flipped through the folder.
“We searched Daniel Reyes’s name. Nothing connects him publicly to Anthony.”
“It wasn’t public.”
“Where did they meet?”
Marcus looked toward me.
“Romano’s.”
Giuseppe stopped moving.
I turned.
“What?”
His face had gone pale.
“You knew my father?”
He gripped the back of a chair.
“Many years ago.”
My throat closed.
“How many people in this room have been lying to me?”
Giuseppe’s eyes filled.
“I promised Daniel.”
“Everybody keeps making promises that somehow require me to be stupid.”
“That was never what he wanted.”
“Then what did he want?”
Giuseppe disappeared into his office.
When he returned, he carried an old camel-colored overcoat.
My father’s.
I knew it immediately.
One cuff still had the dark burn mark from when he leaned too close to our stove.
I touched it.
“Where did you get this?”
“Daniel left it here the night he met Anthony.”
“Eleven years ago?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He said if anyone came asking, I should burn it.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Giuseppe’s voice softened.
“Because it still smelled like his pipe tobacco, and after he died I couldn’t.”
I pressed my face into the coat before I could stop myself.
For one second I was twelve again.
Safe.
Then something hard inside the lining pressed against my palm.
I pulled back.
“There’s something in here.”
Giuseppe stared.
“I never checked.”
Marco cut three stitches.
A small brass luggage key fell onto the table.
Stamped on it:
C-214.
And tucked beside it—
A photograph.
My father stood outside Romano’s beside Anthony Castellano.
Between them was a younger Dante.
Maybe twenty-one.
He looked angry.
In the background stood Victor Hale.
I turned the picture over.
Dad’s handwriting:
If Anthony fails, the younger brother must know.
I looked at Dante.
“Your younger brother?”
His face had gone completely still.
“No.”
He took the photograph.
“My brother Luca was younger.”
The brother Victor Hale murdered.
“Then Dad wanted Luca to know.”
Dante shook his head slowly.
“He already did.”
“What?”
“My brother was investigating Victor before he died.”
A terrible understanding began forming.
My father.
Anthony.
Luca.
Three men connected by the same secret.
Two dead.
One missing.
Marcus whispered, “That’s why Victor wanted the ledger.”
Dante’s eyes darkened.
“No.”
He looked at the key.
“That’s why he wants Mia.”
I stared.
“What does a luggage key have to do with me?”
Dante looked at C-214.
Then at my father’s coat.
“Because C-214 isn’t a luggage locker.”
He turned the key over.
The reverse side bore an old logo.
New York Municipal Archives.
Marco whispered, “Document cage.”
Dante looked at me.
“Your father hid something in a city evidence archive.”
Marcus went white again.
I saw it.
“So did you know.”
He looked away.
“Marcus.”
His voice dropped.
“Victor knows too.”
“Then why hasn’t he taken it?”
“Because the archive doesn’t release C-cage material with a key.”
“What else does it require?”
Marcus looked at me.
“A named family claimant.”
My heartbeat stumbled.
May you like
He swallowed.
“Daniel registered you.”
